{"id":3826,"date":"2018-03-12T11:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T16:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/?p=3826"},"modified":"2018-03-11T08:05:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T12:05:15","slug":"shaun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/2018\/03\/12\/shaun\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaun: Sword making, or, the Importance of a Major\/Career-Related Extracurricular"},"content":{"rendered":"

My high school track coach always said that freshmen were like the beginnings of a good sword: useless, worthless hunks of metal. They have no idea what they <\/span>want <\/span><\/i>to do, he would tell us, much less what they <\/span>should <\/span><\/i>or <\/span>should not<\/span><\/i> do. So they try everything; things they\u2019re good at, things they\u2019re definitely bad at, and everything in between. Freshmen are stupid, he said \u2014 and that\u2019s what makes them great. They take the biggest risks, and they fail most of the time, and they really consider quitting. But once they find that <\/span>thing<\/span><\/i> that makes them come back for another day, either because they\u2019re good at it or because they love it or both, it makes all the stupid first-year pragmatism worth it. <\/span><\/p>\n

At this point it\u2019s time to start making the sword, and the worthless, first-year piece of metal gets thrown into the fire. Day in and day out the metal is casted and molded, then casted and remolded again, until it\u2019s strong enough to be brought out onto the anvil. Now the metal is hammered out, then it’s plunged into ice water, then hammered again, and again, until a sword is finally taking shape. In time the metal is remarkably strong, and it starts to be sharpened. Subtle and precise refinements form the edges that make the sword so effective and powerful. Some four years later, it\u2019s spring of senior year, and what was once a shapeless clump of metal has been forged into a tool of <\/span>absolute and utter destruction<\/span><\/i>. The process was lengthy, and it was difficult. But it pays off. The result is something unstoppable, something purposeful, and above all, something of which you\u2019re incredibly proud. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sword-making is a really good metaphor for track and field, but I think it\u2019s a really good metaphor for college, too. Freshman year on campus is the time to <\/span>embrace <\/span><\/i>the hunk of metal status. It\u2019s the time to try everything, and be bad at things, and be stupid, because that\u2019s the only way to find <\/span>your <\/span><\/i>thing. For me, that thing was The Daily Free Press; for you, it could be literally anything (we\u2019re at BU, people \u2014 don\u2019t tell me you can\u2019t find an extracurricular). And once you have that thing, throw yourself into the fire. If you\u2019re already in the fire, keep throwing yourself in. Hammer yourself into shape. Sharpen your edges with internships and study abroad and classes you love. Four years will go by in a blur. But you\u2019ll come out of this workshop we call Boston University a tool of destruction ready to conquer your field and, if you\u2019re feeling up to it, the entire <\/span>freaking <\/span><\/i>world. <\/span><\/p>\n

And please, don\u2019t be afraid of failing. The fire will always be there. <\/span><\/p>\n

xoxo,<\/span><\/p>\n

Shaun<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My high school track coach always said that freshmen were like the beginnings of a good sword: useless, worthless hunks of metal. They have no idea what they want to do, he would tell us, much less what they should or should not do. So they try everything; things they\u2019re good at, things they\u2019re definitely … Continue reading Shaun: Sword making, or, the Importance of a Major\/Career-Related Extracurricular<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2018,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44502],"tags":[44497,44493,2260],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3840,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826\/revisions\/3840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}